dalchem.nnov.ru is the site of Nizhny Novgorod chemical-reagent manufacturer OOO DAlKHIM (in its English spelling, DALCHEM). The earliest surviving snapshot of the home page is dated 1 April 2001[1], the latest — 23 October 2011[4]. The site itself named its Nizhny Novgorod tie: the description of the Russian version read "OOO DAlKHIM (Nizhny Novgorod)"[1], while the English version placed the company in "one of Russia's scientific and industrial centers — Nizhny Novgorod"[2]. The domain lived in the Nizhny Novgorod zone nnov.ru.

The Russian version: reagents in stock and to order

The 2001 snapshot shows a simple corporate site with a seven-item menu: "About Us," "How to Find Us," "Our Products," "Download Price List," "Make a Request," "Strem Catalog," "Registration"[1]. As the home page stated, OOO "DAlKHIM LTD." had "operated in the chemical-reagent production market since 1991" and was "the exclusive representative of Strem Chemicals in Russia" — an American company in the field of organometallic and inorganic chemistry[1].

The firm gave its production figures right on the front page: more than 500 square meters of leased laboratory space, 12 synthetic chemists on staff, five of them Candidates of Science, and a list of more than 300 compounds — organometallic, organic, inorganic, and in particular organophosphorus. Synthesis was carried out in 22-liter flasks, 30- and 65-liter stainless-steel reactors, and a two-liter autoclave; the products were intended for scientific research and for catalysis in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and electronics industries[1]. The site separately explained the need for a stock inventory: "long delivery times for imported reagents are one of the ailments of the chemical reagent market in Russia." An imported order took two weeks to two months after prepayment to arrive, while the company's own synthesis took two to eight weeks[1]. The page's keywords outline the specialization: cyclopentadienyl and pentamethylcyclopentadienyl compounds, titanocene, zirconocene, rare-earth and indenyl derivatives, tetraethylborate, phosphines[1].

The English version: exports and instrument fleet

By 2003 the site had been redesigned: the home page became the English-language one, with a Russian/English switch and a menu of About, Contacts, Products, Make a request, Registration, Site Tour[2]. The founding year given here differs from the Russian version — 1997[2]; the site never explained the discrepancy with the "since 1991" date[1].

Over two years the company had grown noticeably: a staff of 33, including 16 chemists (10 with a master's-level degree and 6 Candidates of Science) and 7 technicians, roughly 1,200 square meters of leased space, 600 of them laboratory space[2]. Equipment included ten 65-liter steel reactors, eight 20-liter filters, glass flasks of 22 and 12 liters, a two-liter autoclave, and eight packed columns; the site noted experience handling air-sensitive and pyrophoric compounds, including filtration at temperatures up to 150 degrees, and production of optically active substances ranging in volume from grams to 500–1,000 kilograms per year[2]. Quality control was described through a list of instruments: elemental analysis for carbon and hydrogen, a polarimeter, a MEL-TEMP 3.0, an HP 6890 gas chromatograph, a Waters Alliance liquid chromatograph, and NMR on 1H, 13C, and 31P nuclei[2]. The firm tied its logistics to Nizhny Novgorod's international airport: shipping via Lufthansa Cargo and DHL, 4–7 days to an overseas customer[2]. The page closed with the line "Our mission is to provide the high quality of our service in time," signed by President and CEO Alex Dregich[2]. Starting in 2004 a news block appeared on the home page, functioning as a trade-show calendar: the December 2004 snapshot invited visitors to CPhI'04 at Brussels Expo, 7–9 December, booth 8423[3]. The surviving home-page snapshots contain no address or phone number — contact details lived on a separate page that did not make it into our archive[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

For the Nizhny Novgorod Internet of the early 2000s this was an atypical site: not a portal or a storefront for the local shopper, but an English-language page for a contract manufacturer addressed to foreign laboratories and pharmaceutical companies[2]. It does not appear in our surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru ranking, and no visitor-count figures were recorded for it; on the sample itself, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating. The domain dalchem.nnov.ru does not appear in the results table of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote[5]. A trace of the address remains in the city network's nn.ru directory: in our sample of the directory the firm is listed under a category described as "chemical reagent production," with no ratings or votes.

How it closed

In total, 34 visits to the address were archived by the Wayback Machine, the last one on 23 October 2011[4]. By that point the page was almost unchanged from the 2003 version: the same text about 33 employees and 1,200 square meters, the same director's signature. The lag shows in the news items — as of 2011 the home page was still inviting visitors to CPhI 2009 in Madrid, 13–15 October 2009 (booth 4654, hall four), and to Infomex 2010 in San Francisco, 16–19 February 2010 (booth 832)[4]. In substance the site stopped updating around the turn of 2009–2010 and hung on unchanged for another year and a half; what became of the company itself the snapshots do not say — after October 2011 the address no longer appears in the Wayback Machine[4].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2011 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet voting results, 2004 (archive)